The Heavenly Father eBook

LECTURE I.

OUR IDEA OF GOD.

(At Geneva, 17th Nov. 1863.—­At Lausanne,
11th Jan. 1864.)

GENTLEMEN,

Some five-and-twenty or thirty years ago, a German
writer published a piece of verse which began in this
way: “Our hearts are oppressed with the
emotions of a pious sadness, at the thought of the
ancient Jehovah who is preparing to die.”
The verses were a dirge upon the death of the living
God; and the author, like a well educated son of the
nineteenth century, bestowed a few poetic tears upon
the obsequies of the Eternal.

I was young when these strange words met my eyes,
and they produced in me a kind of painful bewilderment,
which has, I think, for ever engraven them in my memory.
Since then, I have had occasion to learn by many tokens
that this fact was not at all an exceptional one, but
that men of influence, famous schools, important tendencies
of the modern mind, are agreed in proclaiming that
the time of religion is over, of religion in all its
forms, of religion in the largest sense of the word.
Beneath the social disturbances of the day, beneath
the discussions of science, beneath the anxiety of
some and the sadness of others, beneath the ironical
and more or less insulting joy of a few, we read at
the foundation of many intellectual manifestations
of our time these gloomy words: “Henceforth
no more God for humanity!” What may well send
a shudder of fright through society—­more
than threatening war, more than possible revolution,
more than the plots which may be hatching in the dark
against the security of persons or of property—­is,
the number, the importance, and the extent of the
efforts which are making in our days to extinguish
in men’s souls their faith in the living God.

This fear, Gentlemen, I should wish to communicate
to you, but I should wish also to confine it within
its just limits. Religion (I take this term in
its most general acceptation) is not, as many say that
it is, either dead or dying. I want no other
proof of this than the pains which so many people
are taking to kill it. It is often those who say
that it is dead, or falling rapidly into dissolution,
who apply themselves to this work. They are too
generous, no doubt, to make a violent attack upon
a corpse; and it is easy to understand, judging by
the intensity of their exertions, that in their own
opinion they have something else to do than to give
a finishing stroke to the dying.

Present circumstances are serious, not for religion
itself, which cannot be imperilled, but for minds
which run the risk of losing their balance and their
support. Let it be observed, however, that when
it is said that we are living in extraordinary times,
that we are passing through an unequalled crisis,
that the like of what we see was never seen before,
and so on, we must always regard conclusions of this